DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 29 



cure thumps, which is the last stage of cholera in a constipated form. Hog3 fed on 

 apples, pumpkins, or following after cattle fed on corn, are not liable to cholera. A 

 neighbor last spring purchased one hundred head of stock-hogs from the pens at Louis- 

 ville, Ky. Soon after getting them home they commenced dying at the rate of four or 

 live per day. He procured a large kettle and connnenced cooking and feeding the dead 

 to the living hogs. Tlie result was that he saved sixty out of the lot of one hundred. 

 Others have fed the dead carcasses of sheep, cattle, and horses to hogs aifected with 

 cholera, and the result was a cessation of the disease. Another acquaintance keeps 

 his hogs well 8Ui)plied with wood-aslies and salt, at the rate of two parts of ashes to 

 one part of salt, which he says is a certain preventive. As all these remedies have the 

 same tendency, namely, the opening of the bowels, we can consistently arrive at but one 

 conclusion, and that is that, the premises are correct and the applications act as au 

 antidote to the disease known as hog cholera. I sincerely trust your inquiries may 

 result in the discovery of something that will stay the further progress of a disease 

 fraught with so jnnch injury to the agricultural interests of our country. 



Tlie first symptoms of chicken cholera are observed in discharges of a thin, yellow 

 nature, followed by an iucliuatioa to sleep, whether sitting or standing. These condi- 

 tions continue until two or three days before death, and during this time the disease 

 is very contagious. The most simple remedy is to give the flock water well impreg- 

 nated with alum. This will usually stay the malady. The sick ones should be given 

 a pill of pulverized alum the size of a small pea, inclosed in wheat dough. If the first 

 does not produce the desired result, repeat the dose at intervals of a few hours. The 

 fowl, when laboring under the disease, has a high internal fever and insatiable thirst, 

 but no appetite or desire to eat. 



Mr. John Q. A. Sieg, Corydon, Harrison County, Indiana, says : 



We have but few malarious or contagious diseases among farm-animals in Southern 

 Indiana. Incident to the hog, we have what is known as cholera, quinsy, and measles. 

 The cholera, in my judgment, is typhoid fever, and is very contagious. I have exam- 

 ined some hogs that died with what was called cholera. The symptoms seem, from 

 what I have noticed, to be about as follows : First, prostration with dullness and stu- 

 pidity ; in most cases diarrhcea with chilliness and iri'egular fever. Subsequently there 

 is an increase of the cerebral difiSculties, dry skin, tenderness of the abdomen, partic- 

 ularly the sides of the same, au eruption of purple spots on the abdomen and thorax, 

 and generally a cough. Usually, in eight or ten days, mortification of the bowels sets 

 in, and the hog dies. Now and then a hog gets well, bnt it is an unusual occurrence. 

 All remedies so far are failures. I would advise keeping all hogs inclosed and not per- 

 mit them to run at large ; then if a hog should become diseased, isolate it immedi- 

 ately. Before adopting ttiis plan I lost a great many hogs, but since practicing it I have 

 lost but very few, and what I did lose were infected from hogs lying around inclosures 

 where mine were confined. I am therefore of the opinion that if this rule was adopted 

 by farmers generally, that what is known as hog cholera would almost disappear. 



Quinsy, I think, is the same disease as that which afflicts human beings, and requires 

 about the same treatment. Maasles never kills a hog, but if butchered while afflicted 

 with the disease, the meat is unfit for use. 



In sheep no disease except foot-rot prevails, and that ouly occurs in low, damp 

 ground or by stabling in a damp, unhealthy shelter. As a remedy, the sheep shbuld 

 be removed to high, dry ground and separated from the well ones. Then take carbolic 

 acid, weaken it with water, and inject the solution into the feet of the sheep every 

 other day until a cure is effected, which usually takes from six to ten days. 



Chicken cholera prevails to a greater extent than any other disease, and causes more 

 loss. It is not confined to chickens alone, but aftocts ducks, gaese, and turkeys alike. 

 No remedies have been discovered that have proved of any banefit. I think good, 

 clean, healthy apartments, with plenty of nutritious food and a good range, will greatly 

 tend to prevent the disease. I have noticed that during the butchering season on the 

 farm fowls are entirely free from disease, and I would infer from this that plenty of 

 meat tends to prevent many of the maladies to which they are subject. 



Mr. W. H. Teobinger, Whitesborough, Tex., says : 



Cattle are very healthy, except those imported from Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, 

 Ohio, &c. These are nearly all attacked with a fever within one or two months after 

 their arrival, and at least one-half of them die. The symptoms are high fever, costive 

 bowels, loss of appetite, and general listlessness. The duration of the disease is from 

 one to two weeks. Remedies are various, but none very successful. Post-mortem ex- 

 aminations usually show signs of enlargement of liver and spleen, with inflammatory 

 action of stomach and bowels. We have no reliable remedy. 



Hogs have been very liable to disease for five or six years. Almost every disease that 

 attacks animals of this class is pronounced cholera, but I have seen but few cases that 



